backstage/.changeset/giant-bees-speak.md

@backstage/plugin-techdocs-backend

@backstage/plugin-techdocs-backend
minor

BREAKING: The cache option is now required by createRouter.

Added catalog-based authorization to TechDocs backend. When permissions are enabled for Backstage (via the permission.enabled config) the current user must have read access to the doc's corresponding catalog entity. The backend will return a 404 if the current user doesn't have access or if the entity doesn't exist. Entities are cached to for a short time to optimize the /static/docs request path, which can be called many times when loading a single TechDocs page.

Note: If you publish your TechDocs documentation to storage in a custom way under paths that do not conform to the default :namespace/:kind/:name pattern, then TechDocs will not work with permissions enabled. We want understand these use cases better and provide a solution in the future, so reach out to us on Discord in the #docs-like-code channel if you would like to help out.